Silent Snowman, Secret Snowman
by Gomro Morskopp
Summary: COMPLETE.Kim's effort to get the perfect Christmas present for her husband Ron unexpectedly leads to dark intrigue. Winner of the 2012 "2nd Annual Snow Daze Holiday Story Contest."
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: This tale is my entry in the "2nd Annual Snow Daze Holiday Story Contest." Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. There's a lot of Christmas stuff I don't own, either. Who knows how much of _that_ will get dragged outta the attic. Soundtrack for this chapter: Symphony #2 ("_Christmas_") by Krzysztof Penderecki; _Sounds Like Christmas_ by The December People; _Three Voices_ by Morton Feldman.

* * *

"Remember _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_?" It was almost Christmas, and Ron was reminiscing again, as he often did this time of year.

Kim laughed. "The reason for the weirdest Christmas we ever celebrated." That year, the whole Possible family had ended up at the North Pole with Drakken and Shego, celebrating the Yuletide inside a decorated escape pod from Drakken's failed orbital weapons platform, Drak Force One. "I didn't know anacondas had _fangs_ until that Christmas." She still wasn't sure of that. Maybe it had been a mutant fer-de-lance or something. She'd seen stranger things.

"Well, yeah, there's that, but I mean the show itself. Wasn't it the best?"

"Sure, " she lied. Her memory of the show was no more than a colourful, sing-song blur. It had been a part of the yearly Possible Christmas agenda, but not because any of the Possibles particularly cared for it. They watched it because Ron enjoyed it so much. "Every Christmas, that couch, that TV and your favorite cartoon snowman," she added. "An hour of joy, wonder, and turning bad guys good." Followed by the multi-megawatt Kim Possible-now-Stoppable smile.

_You're getting very good at deceiving your husband, _sneered her conscience. _Think that was generic enough?_ For just an instant her expression darkened. Sometimes she suspected her conscience wore green and black.

Suspiciously, Ron asked "What about Fred Copperhead?"

"What _about_ Fred Copperhead? It was a long time ago. Maybe you remember it better than I do." She returned to taking the clothes out of the dryer, suddenly realized he was still waiting for an answer. "Uh, he, um, he was the crook that stole the Christmas tree –"

"Christmas _Star_, Kim, he stole the Christmas _Star_. Remember the song? "What's a tree without a star/to guide us when we wander far/away from all the joyful things –"

Time to cut that short. "Right. I remember. Help me fold these clothes."

"It was titled _What's A Tree Without A Star_," he unnecessarily added, trying vainly to find the crease in a pair of dress pants. "It was a very sad song. A very sad moment in TV history."

"It _was_ that." The pants were upside down and flapping now; Kim took them from him, folded them, and handed them back to him, all in one fluid motion. "See, it's simple. We go through this every time you help me with the clothes. Put 'em on a hanger and get something else."

He decided to stick to shirts. They were easier. "_Snowman Hank's _never even been on DVD. You can't walk in Smarty Mart or Bulls-Eye this time of year without fallin' over stinkin' Rudolph and Frosty, but just try to find Snowman Hank." His eyes narrowed. "I think The Man's got a problem with it."

"Oh, for the luvva – I'm sure 'The Man' has _nothing_ to do with it. A lot of cartoons we watched as kids aren't out on DVD. I always liked _My Little Wildebeest_, and it's not out there. It's not like _Snowman Hank_ was something special," she thoughtlessly blurted, and immediately regretted it.

In the sudden silence that followed, a shirt fell to the floor.

She reached out to him, horrified by her own insensitivity. "Oh, Ron, honey. I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry."

He backed away from her. "It's OK, Kim. I can take it. So you never liked _Snowman Hank_. That's not a big deal, we're grown up now, husband and wife. If you think it's necessary to crush my cherished childhood memories under the iron jackboot of criticism, I guess I can live with that." He picked up the shirt, handed it to her, and marched to the door. "I'll be back in a little while. I need some fresh air."

"It's 28 below out there!" Middleton was in the middle of one of the worst blizzards in the history of Colorado. "You can't go out without _protection_ –"

He was gone.

A second later he was back, teeth chattering, eyes wild, ice in his hair, bluish and covered in snow. "A-a-air's fresher in _h-here_."

That night, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, Kim considered the sitch. They'd worked through the Snowman Hank trouble, of course. Ron didn't hold grudges, much, and she'd sincerely apologized for the slight. Eventually it had concluded in hot coco-moo and a movie, cuddling on the couch while their little Christmas tree warmly shimmered and sparkled in the living room corner.

Now he was snoring, and she was the one who couldn't sleep. For some reason, she couldn't let it go. Why wasn't _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_ available on DVD, anyway? Why didn't they ever revive it on one of the countless cable stations? It was certainly no worse than the movie about the kid who wanted a BB gun for Christmas, and that thing got a whole _day_ of air-time to itself every year.

She crawled quietly from the bed, went downstairs, paced a while, sat down at the computer, went online, got up and paced some more. Stared out the window, watching the snow fall. Beeped Wade on the Kimmunicator. It was several minutes before she got an answer.

"Kim," he yawned, "do you know what time it is?" The handsome young giant on the screen bore little resemblance to the pudgy pre-teen who had helped them through so many adventures in high-school. "_I_ do. It's 1:45. In the ay-em."

"Wade, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. I'll let you go."

"I'm up now. You might as well _sitch_ me." He smiled. "Must be something on your mind." He hesitated, cleared his throat, decided to plow ahead. "Ah – everything all right with you and Ron?"

"It's not like that, Wade."

"What _is_ it like, then?"

"Do you remember _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_?"

"I remember cheering when they replaced it with _Xtreme Xmas_."

"The Tweebs did the same. In fact, the only person who missed it was Ron. And that's sorta why I called. I had a little – tiff – with him this afternoon. Over _Snowman Hank_."

"I thought it wasn't like that, Kim."

"It wasn't. Not in the end. But I want him to know I meant it when I told him I was sorry."

"Sorry about what?"

"Dissin' his favorite Christmas special."

"_That's_ his favorite? What about The Grinch? Charlie Brown? _Miracle on 34__th__ St_? _It's A Wonderful Life_?"

"Snowman Hank tops 'em all."

The young man sighed. "Well, there's no accounting for tastes."

Kim began unfolding her plan. "Somebody, somewhere, has _got_ to have a copy of that thing for sale. On laserdisc, on Betamax, in cuneiform, I don't care. Bootleg or not, it doesn't matter. I'm going to get Ron _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_ for Christmas, and we're gonna watch it together, just like we did when we were kids."

"Did you try Amazon, Kim? Or e-Bay?"

"They've got nuthin'. That's why I beeped you. I need your help. If anyone in the world can find it, you can, Wade. I'm not asking you to do it for nothing. I'll pay for your time."

"No you won't. What are friends for?"

There was a groggy shout from upstairs. "_KP_? Whuzzup?"

"I'll be back in a minute," she shouted. "I'm, uh, I'm getting…cold. Yeah."

Wade looked surprised. "He forget that you guys share a last name now?"

"No. I'll always be KP to him, I guess." _And I wouldn't have it any other way._ "I gotta go."

"I'll keep you updated, Kim. We'll get him his Christmas present."

"Thanks, Wade. You're the best."

"I know," he said with a grin, and was gone. Kim put the Kimmunicator away, walked back upstairs, climbed into bed beside her husband.

"Did you say you were getting a cold?" he murmured sleepily.

"I love you," she whispered, caressing him, kissing his cheek. _And this year you'll have the best Christmas ever._

Neither of them could have possibly realized that the gateway to catastrophe was slowly, inexorably creaking open, but they'd find out soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. There's a lot of Christmas stuff I don't own, either. Who knows how much of _that_ will get dragged outta the attic. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Glimmer_ by John Foxx; _Romance 76_ by Peter Baumann; _Ages_ by Edgar Froese.

* * *

There was still a lot of snow from last week's blizzard; pristine no longer, it was heaped in ever-dirtier mounds all over Middleton. At least it had warmed up some. You could go outside without frostbite, if you were careful.

"Kim!"

Standing on the sidewalk outside Smarty Mart, she looked around, certain she'd heard her name. It sounded like Wade Load, but a man as big as he was could scarcely hide from her on this parking lot. Sometimes she wondered if the "growth spurt" that made him an Adonis had been completely natural. Over the years, Wade had proven capable of some strange things; genetic manipulation wouldn't be beyond him.

"Kim!"

She was going to have to call Wade, too, since she'd heard nothing from the computer genius about what she had come to think of simply as The Quest. If it was all going to fall through, she needed to know. Of course_, The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_ wasn't the only thing she was getting her husband for Christmas, but she was definitely depending on it being the Present of the Year. And they were down to two weeks.

"_Kim_! Listen. Don't look around. Just listen."

She looked down, almost cried out in surprise. "Wade!" By some miracle, she'd managed to keep it to a whispered hiss. "What are you _doing_?"

He was barely visible through the grate of the storm drain at her feet. "Gotta lie low. Knew you'd used this method on occasion. Chester Yapsby, right?"

"Don't remind me."

"Didn't know how I was gonna get in touch with you. Sheer chance."

"Why didn't you, you know, just call me? Or beep me? You've got the Kimmunicator."

"No, I don't. They confiscated everything I had. Including the Kimmunicator."

"They? Who are we talking about?" Some Smarty Mart shoppers looked at her oddly as they passed.

There was panic in Wade's eyes. "Stop talking to me. Look at something else."

She began to study the cases of anti-freeze and windshield washer stacked outside the store, feeling vaguely ridiculous.

"So far I've dodged 'em."

The single word popped out despite his request for her silence. "Who?"

"Kim, if you draw their attention, we're done."

She suddenly realized this was no joke. Something serious was happening. Deadly serious.

"I don't know who they are," Wade continued. "I barely got out of there in one piece." He paused. "Man, I'm glad I'd moved to that apartment. Mom's not involved in this. And don't you say a thing to her."

She nodded, slightly.

"I don't know what they're after. You know, I've hacked into a lot of things, top-secret things. Nothing like this has ever happened. I must have finally landed on something too important for them to look the other way. No idea what it might be, though – all I've been doing is looking for that crazy Christmas special."

A car drove up, disgorged a couple of kids and a harried-looking mother, drove on to find a parking spot somewhere on the crowded lot. "Hey," said the older girl, a teen, "are you Kim Possible?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued: "I met you, like, years ago. Outside a bank. You were fighting Shego, but you stopped long enough to give me an autograph."

Kim remembered that incident very well, paradoxically because her memory had been impaired at the time. She had been going through the slow process of regaining it when the little girl had approached her; too confused to realize how much danger Shego posed to Ron, she'd dropped out of the fight to sign the girl's notebook.

These days, of course, no supervillain posed a threat to Ron. World takeover schemes had dropped to zero once the enemies of the world realized the power of the master of Tai Sheng Pek Kwar. No one wanted to end up like the late, unlamented Warhok and Warmonga, who had controlled the planet for almost a day. And then been buried.

At least what was left of them.

"Katelyn, right?" The teen smiled. "Merry Christmas."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"I'm sorta busy at the moment –"

The teenager drew closer, spoke quietly, obviously hoping her mother wouldn't overhear her. "What's she like?"

"Who?"

"Shego. I watched her marry Drakken on The Paparazzi Network. OMG, she was so _beautiful_ –"

"She's a _villain_, Katelyn! Hardly, ah, a role model for aspiring teens –"

"_Was_ a villain. She was pardoned. I mean, her and Drakken, it was so romantic, like Bella and Edward –"

For some reason, Kim felt like she had to reassert herself. "You know, I married Ron, too."

"Who's he?"

"Come on, Katelyn," snarled her mother, "don't bother that woman. She must be busy." Her weary, angry eyes met Kim's. "I know _I_ am."

As they entered the Smarty Mart, Kim heard the younger child ask, "Who was that?"

"She used to be a superhero," answered Katelyn, as the doors slid shut. "I used to be her biggest fan."

Vaguely troubled by the strange conversation, Kim glanced down at the storm grate. Wade was gone. There was a post-it note stuck to the grate; making sure she was unobserved, she reached down and retrieved it. A series of numbers. That was all.

Christmas shopping would have to wait.

As the Sloth pulled off the lot, a strange figure at the wheel of a completely nondescript late model sedan yanked out a communicator. "I've sighted Target One, BIL."

The reply was immediate. "Stop mit ze BIL already. I am not your brother-in-law. Divorced for years you haf been. I am no longer AMUSED BY THE APPELLATION!"

"Sorry, uh, Christoph."

"Ven you haf completed dis mission, Myron, ve vill consider ze first-name basis. Until den, you vill refer to me VITH ZE RESPECT I DEMAND! Be GRATEFUL I haf RE-EMPLOYED you after zat last DEBACLE."

"Yes, Professor Dementor." He said it in the tones of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"Vat vas she doing?"

"Talking to a storm drain. And some weird teenager. "

"Zat ist very inexplicable, and I do not like it."

"Yeah, kids these days, I don't get them at all."

"I had more ze STORM DRAIN in mind, Myron! Such conversations are portents of mysterious things afoot."

"How do we even know she still _has_ the suit? She hasn't done the crimefighter stuff in forever."

"If she doesn't, then she knows who DOES. Und vith zat self-healing, spring-stepping suit _finally_ in my vardrobe, I can again begin ze CONQUEST OF THE WORLD AND SURROUNDING REGIONS! Vith it, even her husband's lethal powers can be ADDRESSED… und NULLIFIED."

"And that's a good thing, right?"

"Oh, a very, very goot thing, Myron. An absolutely _vunderbar_ thing. Vhere is she now?"

"Ah – in her car – driving away."

"You vill maintain ze surveillance of Target One. Secretly. All things zat are _unvernünftig_ you vill DO NOT. Understand? I am not Drakken. I do not endure constantly ze asinine minions."

Myron smiled, a goofy grin. "Yeah, but the Strudelworks is out of business. Can't go back to that!"

"Then if I cannot return you to ze Strudelvorks, I vill simply haf to DISINTEGRATE YOU." The communicator fell silent; Dementor's flunky shifted uncomfortably in the car seat. "DO NOTHING STUPID. Are ve on ze same PAGE, Myron?"

"Yes, Professor Dementor."

"Keep me informed. I vant always to be in ze LOOP. Dementor out."

While talking to his employer, Myron had allowed Target One to escape his eagle eye; hastily he drove off, in the general direction Kim had taken, on his way to getting hopelessly lost on the side streets of Middleton.

Neither Kim nor Myron realized other, more sinister eyes were also watching.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. There's a lot of Christmas stuff I don't own, either. Who knows how much of _that_ will get dragged outta the attic. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Nothing to Fear_ by Oingo Boingo; _Romance 76_ by Peter Baumann; _Ages_ by Edgar Froese.

* * *

"So anyway," Ron was saying, halfway watching the _Crepuscular Region _marathon on the sci-fi channel, "Monique says hi."

"Uh-huh." Kim had ducked into the bedroom, looking for something. Something she hadn't needed for a while.

"Oh yeah, she's expecting."

"That's nice…" Too bad the Battlesuit had broken down again, but Wade had never been able to completely repair it after Dementor tried to seize it by remote-control, back in her senior year of high school. The Bavarian madman had been obsessed with its powers. His last attempt to steal it was shortly before the Lorwardian invasion; since then, he had escaped prison and apparently gone into hiding.

She definitely hadn't missed him. Of all her numerous adversaries, only Shego was as vicious as the minuscule scientist, and even she would balk at throwing a teenager into a pool of acid.

Not Dementor. She'd seen it done.

"KP, are you even listening? I saw Monique in town today. And she's expecting!"

The words finally hit home. A vortex of emotion swirled through Kim's heart. She hadn't seen Monique since her promotion to Club Banana Zone Manager. She'd relocated to Cincinnati, and there she'd met Denis Langevin, the most handsome hunk on Earth. In a whirlwind romance, he had swept her off her feet.

At least that was the version posted on Myspacebook. For all of her professional veneer, Monique could still gush like a schoolgirl online.

Kim was happy for them both.

There was some envy there, too. Sometimes she feared that she'd been exposed to one too many dimensional vortexes, been hit with one too many plasma blasts, tied to one too many doomsday devices, even though the doctors had assured them both that all was well. So why didn't they have a son, a daughter?

It wasn't like they hadn't tried.

She walked into the darkened living room, where the ancient, black-and-white image of Rob Sterling, _Crepuscular Region's_ near-legendary narrator, was intoning the upcoming episode's trademark dire prediction: "Submitted for your approval, a woman waiting for an answer. Unaware that answer will open the door…to The Crepuscular Region."

Ron lowered the recliner a little more as the theme music began its eerie twanging. "It's the one where the woman's in the hospital having plastic surgery. When they take off the bandages she's beautiful, but on that planet our beautiful is their ugly, so she's actually gruesome."

"Uh-_huh_."

"It's titled 'A Matter of Perspective'."

"Why not 'Eye of the Beholder?'

"KP." He sighed. "That would have been _way_ too obvious."

Another TV show that wouldn't die. You could watch _The_ _Crepuscular Region_ on some channel every hour of the day. Rotated forever in syndication, it had never been off the air since its cancellation in the mid-1960s. You could probably see it online as well.

Not like _Snowman Hank_.

"How many times have you seen that episode?" she asked.

"I dunno. Two or three. Hundred. It's a classic. Did you hear what I told you?"

"About Monique, yeah, that's great. Spankin'." She hesitated. "I've got something I have to do."

"What's that?" He stood up, reached for the light switch. "More Christmas shopping? I still need to get something for Hana – " He fell silent.

She was clad in her mission garb, a strange, indecisive expression on her beautiful face.

_Not many other women her age can still get in their high-school clothes, _he thought. _Not many other women spent their high-school years saving the world in their spare time. _Once again he was reminded what a lucky man he was.

When he spoke, he was quiet, serious. "Kim, what is it?"

"Wade's in some sort of trouble. He left me a message; time and coordinates. " She glanced at the old-fashioned cuckoo clock on the wall, the clock Ron had given her on their first Christmas together as man and wife. Six-thirty. "It's time to go. I – I didn't know if I should tell you."

He was shocked. "Why?"

"I don't know." She shook her head, as if shaking off an evil spell. "Yes I do. We haven't done this for what – four, five years? I felt like – I felt like I'd be pushing something on you."

"Wade's in trouble – and you figured I'd rather stay home and watch Rob Sterling yammer on for the thousandth time?"

"Three hundred and first. And it wasn't like that. Really." _I've gone this far; might as well spill._ "You don't ever talk about it. About our school years. The missions. It's like you've – put it behind you. "

"And you haven't?"

"I met a fan the other day."

"That's good –"

"_Former_ fan."

"Not so good."

"She wanted to know all about Shego and Drakken. 'She's such a_ hero. _Saved the world and all. Their wedding was _sooo romantic.'"_

The sarcastic edge in her voice made him wonder where this was heading. Even after all these years, KP was still a mystery to him.

She didn't keep him wondering long._ "_Ron, they don't even _remember_ us. _You_ saved the world, not Shego. She was lying unconscious in a pile of rubble. Just like I was. "

"Shego and Drakken are still high-profile. They're constantly on The Paparazzi Network. Everywhere they go, everything they do. I guess they like it that way." He suspected that Shego liked it far more than Drakken, but that wasn't important at the moment. "Our lives are different. We _chose_ to retire. We _chose_ to get out of the limelight. You're a teacher. I'm a Smarty Mart manager."

"A teacher who's also a special diplomatic envoy to the UN. A Smarty Mart manager who studies tai sheng pek kwar at Yamanouchi."

"Never mind that. People are fickle, Kim. Yesterday's news means nothing to them." It was time to drop this subject. "So what's with Wade? _Sitch_ me."

Hearing him use the word brought a small smile to her face. "He – ah – he was looking into some things for me, and somehow he got in over his head." No need to tell him about _Snowman Hank_. He might still find that under the Christmas tree. "I'll fill you in on the way."

The Sloth pulled out, took off down the street. A minute later, Myron's sedan followed it at a distance. Dementor had been very displeased with his performance thus far, especially with the price of gasoline what it was. _This time,_ he thought_, I'll prove my quality_. "I won't let you down, BIL," he told the steering wheel, and promptly ran a red light.

Officer Cosgrove was unsympathetic. "So what's with the goofy pajamas? And the weird hat?"

_Think fast, Myron._ "I'm – uh – an elf. Christmas party. C'mon, officer, I'll be late. Give me a break."

"Elf?" The policeman raised a derisive eyebrow. "You look more like the deranged minion of an evil scientist. Or something."

"It's – it's a sophisticated, ironic _comment_ on Christmas. You know, elves are Santa's minions, and Santa is pretty judgmental, with the whole naughty-and-nice thing. Not unlike an evil scientist, or some other form of dictator –"

"I hate irony. Here's your ticket."

The Sloth was long out of sight. Myron drove off, muttering to himself.

Unknown to either the Stoppables or their erstwhile stalker, another person had joined the impromptu caravan, leaping nimbly from rooftop to rooftop, keeping the vehicles in sight with practiced ease. A feral cat sprang out of the shadows, surprising the lithe figure; a small bolt of green plasma sent the creature howling back into the dark.

She cursed under her breath. That shouldn't have happened. She was too tense, too ready to fight. It had been some time since she'd done anything like this; she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, felt her heartbeat slow down, her mind clear. A master thief does nothing out of fear or nervousness. A master thief finds their centre, works with confidence, has everything under control. And she was a master thief.

Among other things.

A moment later she vaulted off again, into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: This tale is my entry in the "2nd Annual Snow Daze Holiday Story Contest." Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. There's a lot of Christmas stuff I don't own, either. Who knows how much of _that_ will get dragged outta the attic. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Sounds Like Christmas_ by The December People; _Danger Man _score by Edwin Astley; _The Girl Who Was Death _by Devil Doll. Merry Christmas!

* * *

The Superior Mine lay nearly fifty miles from Middleton. During the years of the Silver Standard, it had been the hub of the state's economy, and the mining town that sprung up around it had become a center of industry, merchandising and homespun sin. Then the United States had switched to the Gold Standard, and now Silverton and the mine that birthed it were no more than footnotes in history books.

The Sloth descended from the cloudless skies to rattle through the ghost town's unpaved streets. About two miles from Silverton, the little car came to a stop; Kim and Ron Stoppable disembarked, stepped quickly into the shadows of the mine entrance.

"I knew you'd crack that code," Wade Load told them, as they entered. The young man had a backpack on; he'd obviously been prepared to stay in the wild a while.

Kim was relieved to see he was all right, even under these strange conditions. "It was no big, Wade. I read Kruber's _Kryptografik_ in college. Once you've plowed through that, you can decode about anything."

"How'd you get here?" Ron asked, nervously surveying his foreboding surroundings. The darkness above them was rustling faintly. Bats. He hated bats. Or maybe snakes. He hated snakes, too. Could be scorpions, for all he knew. Didn't like those either.

The young man laughed. "You know, I _can_ drive now."

"We circled the town before we landed. Didn't see your car anywhere."

"And you won't. Uh – hid it in one of the abandoned stables. If _they'd_ spot it –"

Kim broke in. "Wade, who are 'they'? Who are we up against?"

He hesitated before answering. "GJ."

"_Global Justice_?" Her tone revealed her disbelief. "They're on _our_ side."

"Not this time, Kim. I don't know what I got into, but it brought them down on me like a ton of bricks." He produced a small metal box. "I can prove it was them. Look at this. Get in close; it's only going to last a second. I don't want to waste my evidence and then be told you were too busy watching the _bats_ overhead to see it."

"Snarky, aren't we," Ron grumbled.

"Sorry, man, I've been through a lot. Yeah, shouldn't have snapped like that."

The three of them huddled around the box as the lid was lifted.

An instant later two of them were on the ground, gasping for breath. Kim, struggling to stay conscious, managed to get to her knees, saw Wade's form shift, melt, become someone else entirely. She tried to form the name, but all she could do was groan as she joined her husband in oblivion.

Camille Leon closed the box, amused by how easily they'd fallen for the ruse. She waited a full five minutes to remove the filters from her nostrils; they were irritating, especially during shape-shifting, but they did the trick. It would be humiliating to take them out too soon and fall victim to the knockout gas herself.

She pulled out her cell phone, rang a certain number. "_Honey_, both _turkeys_ have been _purchased_ at the _store_. We'll need to send _someone around_ _to pick them up_."

"I'm sorry, _dear_," came the reply. "The _dog_ was _barking_. Please repeat that."

She muttered something unpleasant, pulled a small book from her backpack: _Global Justice Code Protocol_. Sometimes she wondered what GJ had been like when Betty Director was Chief. Some of the older agents longed for those days, when being an agent had been an adventure. The new Chief was absolutely obsessed with following every tiny detail to the letter, and that obsession had filtered down through the entire organization.

It had improved the organization's competence considerably, but not their morale.

She thumbed through the book, recognized her error, tried again. "_Honey_, I purchased _both_ the turkeys at the _store_. _Someone_ needs to _drive_ around to _pick them up_."

"I'll send _Sammy_ around _immediately_," was the innocuous reply. "Goodbye…oops, I mean '_Later'_."

The copter would be there in twenty minutes. Good; she didn't want to wait around here any longer than necessary. She considered both the turkeys sprawled on the cold, wet mine floor with distaste. They were the reason she was in Global Justice; once the story of the Lorwardians' destruction got around, supervillains everywhere scrambled for new employment. GJ had been very eager to hire someone with her abilities. A shapeshifter would be very handy in the field. Someone was always trying to endanger the world.

This time it had been Team Possible.

She permitted herself a bit of a sinister grin.

* * *

"Wh—where am I?" Kim returned to consciousness in a fluorescent-lit room filled with strange control banks and ominous devices. A gigantic monitor screen filled one wall; at present it simply showed a map of the world, along with various data readouts that meant nothing to her. She tried to move. "Chained up, of course," she mumbled. It had been a long time since she'd found herself in this sitch.

Beside her Ron also hung from manacles, still unconscious. Before she could say his name a voice came from behind her, a voice she hadn't expected to ever hear again. "We're keeping your boyfriend asleep for the time being, Possible. Tai sheng pek kwar isn't on the menu tonight." There was laughter. "You've both been out a while."

"It's Stoppable now. He's my _husband_, not my boyfriend," she told her unseen captor. "And, okay," she added angrily, "what's the _sitch_?"

"Husband? You married _him_? I hadn't heard." Will Du stood before her, two GJ agents at his sides. "The _sitch_, Kimberly, is simple. Wade Load, your husband, and yourself have been subdued by Global Justice for attempting to steal top-secret information from the Global Justice vaults."

"What? Let me talk to Betty. This is some sort of mistake." She favored Du with a glare. "Or set-up."

"Dr. Director retired three years ago. _I_ am now the Chief of Global Justice."

"We haven't tried to steal _anything_."

"Yes, you have. The most evil thing we have under lock and key." One of the agents handed him a DVD; he held it up for her to read the label. "DANGER," she said, annoyed at having to play Du's game. " DO NOT WATCH. WEAPON XIII-666." She waited; Du said nothing. Just stared. Finally she had to ask. "Okay, what is it?"

"The product of a malign foreign power, intended to undermine and decimate our country from within. You know Weapon XIII-666 as _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_."

For the first time in her whole life, she knew the exact meaning of the word 'flabbergasted.' "You're_ joking_."

"Do I _look_ like I'm joking?"

"That outfit _is_ a bit ridiculous –"

"This is the most potent brainwashing tool ever created. The subliminal signal encoded within it is devastating to the human mind."

"That's crazy, and I'm not buying it. Where's Wade?"

"He's already home. With his beloved technology. All traces of _Snowman Hank_ research have been removed from it, of course. And our own Dr. Ludovico has also removed all traces of your request or his search from his mind. The technique is foolproof. He'll be fine now." Du and his men shared a laugh. "No longer a threat to the world."

A sick feeling began churning deep in Kim's guts. "You – you really _mean_ this, don't you?"

"GJ agents don't have a sense of humor, Kim. It's surgically removed when we sign up. Of course I mean it."

"A subversive children's cartoon. Hard to believe." _Was nothing sacred anymore_? "And a _Christmas_ special to boot. "

"Were you a Snowman Hank fan?" The GJ agents watched her coldly.

"No. No one in my family cared for it. We only watched it because Ron liked it so much," she said, and realized too late that she'd said too much. She winced.

The GJ men looked at her unconscious husband in disgust. "Only weak-willed people fell victim to it. Everyone else saw it for the cluster of sugary clichés it is."

"Evidently you want to gloat. You would have made a good supervillain, Will. I notice you've got one on the team now."

"Camille? A very effective agent. She brought Load in, too." He spoke to the other agents, quietly, in a tongue Kim didn't know. "Ask your questions, if you want. I'll answer. You aren't going to remember any of this, anyway. Dr. Ludovico is very good at his work. And he hardly leaves a scar." He paused. "Physically, that is."

"Where'd it come from?"

"Nothing's certain. Another country. Another regime. We traced it to a terrorist base in Eastern Europe, something you wouldn't know anything about –"

A shocked understanding dawned in Kim's eyes. "_Colony Three_."

"What – but how –"the Chief of Global Justice spluttered. "There is no way you can know about Colony Three."

"They play hardball. How many men did GJ lose there, Du?"

There was no answer, but Du's reddening face told her she'd found a chink in his armor. _While I'm on a nerve_, she thought, _let me hit it another good whack_. "The Colony Three connection led you to a village in Wales."

Du and the other GJ men spoke together briefly. When Du turned back to her, he was visibly shaken. "Ah – yes. Yes, it did. It was abandoned."

"_Was_ it." She laughed bitterly. "Don't fool yourself."

Again there was a brief conference. "How do you know all that?"

"Drakken was deep into mind control. It pays to know your enemy. You can't do much real research on the subject without discovering Colony Three and the Village."

"It's not like they're on Wikipedia. How did you –" Then he remembered Wade's special talents, and knew the answer. GJ might need to bring him in again. On general principle. After they were done with these two.

"They specialized in electroshock therapy, hallucinogenic drugs, subliminal broadcasts, mind exchange and dream manipulation. _Snowman Hank_ must be poison from beginning to end." Unexpectedly, like a panther pouncing on its prey, a long-forgotten song from the show sprang from her memory, its sappy lyrics repeating in her head: "_It's not the turkey and the stuffing/Or the gifts around the tree/It's a warm and fuzzy feeling/That begins with you and me!_"

She shook her head, trying to make it stop.

Du watched her with amusement as she moaned. "Having a ringlin', jinglin' Kris-Kringlin' Christmas?"

It was her turn to answer with silence. And an angry glare.

Du spoke to the foreign GJ men; the three of them laughed. Their sense of humor might be gone, but their sadism was obviously intact. He turned back to Kim. "It fights back. And you _didn't_ fall under its spell. Imagine what it did to the people who swallowed it hook, line and sinker."

She considered Ron hanging helpless in his shackles, remembering all the Christmases they'd watched _Snowman Hank_ together. Remembering all the crucial blunders, all the catastrophic help, all the disastrous failures at all the worst possible moments. Remembering all the lost pants.

And then there was Zorpox.

"Why do you think the whole United States has gone insane?" Du asked. "That thing spewed its venom across the nation, unhindered, for twenty years. We're reaping the harvest now. Crazy politicians, deranged snipers, general demoralization, fiscal ineptitude, supervillains, mad scientists – you can lay it all at _Snowman Hank's_ door. The ultimate weapon." Du's expression suddenly hardened. "And you wanted to turn it loose again. For Christmas."

"I - I didn't know! I –"

"Everyone always assumes the Government is up to no good. In this case, we're protecting the world from an incredible threat. You mentioned Drakken - if someone like him got their hands on this, who knows where we'd end up?" He turned the disc in his hands, watched it glitter. "You know _exactly_ where."

"So why haven't you just destroyed it?"

He was silent so long she thought he wasn't going to answer. "I didn't say the Government was _completely_ altruistic." He held up the disc, so seemingly harmless. "Global Justice has uses for this, if we can ever crack the mystery of the signal. It could have very important effects in the, ah, international arena."

Without warning two blasts of seething green force hissed through the air, sent Du's assistants flying across the room. "Is that so," cooed a voice all too familiar to Kim. "And I thought I was just shopping for a Christmas present. Hand it over."

Du whipped out a pistol, just as quickly lost it to another blast. It skidded across the floor, fused and shattered. Without hesitation he hurled a ballistic knife at his opponent with deadly force.

A gloved hand caught the lethal weapon in the air.

"You must like living on the edge," jeered Shego, smiling, examining the finely balanced blade. It suddenly vanished in a violent flash of green light. "I appreciate that in a man. _Now give me that disc_."


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: This tale is my entry in the "2nd Annual Snow Daze Holiday Story Contest." Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. There's a lot of Christmas stuff I don't own, either. Who knows how much of _that_ will get dragged outta the attic. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Sounds Like Christmas_ by The December People; _Orion Machine_ by Takashi Yoshimatsu; _Helicopter String Quartet_ by Karlheinz Stockhausen.

* * *

Realizing he didn't have a chance alone against Shego, Du desperately shouted for backup. "Fonebone! Bestertester!"

Fonebone and Bestertester remained where they had fallen.

"You've killed them," Du snapped. "Two of GJ's finest."

Shego leaped down from overhead. "I doubt it." The emerald harlequin stalked toward them, a malicious smile on her lips. "It doesn't work like that on people. If it did, Kimmie wouldn't be here today. Would you, Kimmie?" She walked over to the young woman, stroked her cheek with a clawed glove. "I could have killed you a long time ago," she purred. "Tell the man."

Kim strained against her restraints, to no avail. "I thought you and Drakken were out of the villain business. Jet-setters now. Pardoned and reformed."

"Pardoned, yeah. Reformed – not so much." Like Kim, Shego had barely changed. There was a little silver in the jet-black mane; the lines at the corners of her eyes were slightly more pronounced. "But no one can do anything really big with your monkey-fu boyfriend guarding the world." Her hand was at Kim's neck.

"Husband."

"Husband, huh? I hadn't heard." She whispered something in Kim's ear. "Just between us girls – you could have done better, Kimmie."

Beyond them, Du was frantically pushing an alarm button.

"Just between us girls," Kim retorted, "I did better than you, Sherri."

Shego stepped back, her features implacable, the only sign of her rage the fire in her eyes.

"Take that however you like," Kim added.

The green woman laughed. "Someday I _will_ kill you, Princess. But not today. It's Christmas Eve."

"Christmas Eve?" Kim exclaimed. "How long have we _been_ here?"

But there was no answer. Instead, with a single leap, the villainess pounced on Du, pinned him in a second to the wall. "That button won't work," she told the terrified GJ agent. "I didn't get the reputation I have by leaving loose ends. Now," she said, pressing a finger to his forehead, "it's time for nappy-nap."

There was a tiny green flash.

The disc fell from Du's hand; Shego grabbed it as he collapsed. "Sleep tight. Dream about sugar plums or something." Holding the disc, she sauntered back to Kim. "Been following you for a while. Found out about your 'quest'." She snickered nastily at the word.

Kim ignored it. "How?"

"There _is_ a grapevine. We keep close tabs on you and monkey-boy."

"'We' being you and Drakken?"

"'We' being a lot of people. There are still plenty of supervillains just waiting for an opening. Even some new ones. Wireman. Absolute Zer0. Dogwhist-"

"So what'd you hear?"

"You had your computer whiz start looking for _Snowman Hank_. You know Dr. D's a _big_ fan of that crap."

"Yeah. I remember. He would be."

"I thought it would make a great Christmas present. And it would be even better if I let you find it for me, and then took it from you." She turned the disc over and over in her hands, like a child marveling at a wonderful Christmas ornament; its shiny silver surface cast strange reflections in her greedy emerald eyes. "Nice of Du to spell its powers out for me. I didn't know what I was getting. Drakken loves mind control stuff. He'll figure this out in no time." She laughed. "I've stolen the key to the world."

"Ja, you have." Another sinister, all-too-familiar voice. Global Justice HQ was turning into Grand Central Station, it seemed. "Und now… you vill hand that DISC over… to ME."

Deliberately ignoring the bellowed ultimatum, the green woman calmly reached down, put the disc in her leg pouch and smiled, eyes narrowed.

"Dementor," Kim snarled, yanking vainly at the chains that bound her. "So you're a Snowman Hank fan too."

"Nein. I thought it vas the most HORRIBLE TRIPE on TELEVISION! I vas after your Battlesuit. A beautiful thing. But zis, zis is zo much the better. A Battlesuit can vin a fight. That disc can CONQUER A COUNTRY. And vhen _I_ haf decoded ze mystery of it, ze whole VORLD VILL OBEY PROFESSOR DEMENTOR – und ENJOY IT!" The short man grinned viciously, brandished a strange, multicoloured flashing wand connected by a wire to a box on his belt. "Now make vith the disc overhanding."

Shego spun around in a battle stance, both hands crackling with green energy . "Come and take it, Shorty. I'm not afraid of you or that kid's toy you've got."

"But you SHOULD be." He pointed the wand at her; she jumped nimbly away from what she supposed was its beam, spun in the air and came down hard on her side. In something close to panic she forced herself to stand, reeled, and fell.

Across the room, Kim stiffened in her restraints, groaned, closed her eyes, teeth clenched.

Dementor held the little wand high; its strange lights cast eerie shadows on his face. "Do you like it? Its signal works directly on ze INNER EAR, inducing ze VERTIGO in EVERYONE WITHIN RANGE." He tapped his helmet. "Everyone but ME, of course. Zis is much more than ze stylish headgear."

Shego was again struggling to get to her feet. The room was whirling around her, the floor wobbling like a ship in a storm.

"I had ze infection of ze ear vhen I vas six," said the evil scientist. "I knew then vhat a veapon zis vould make."

With a scream of pure fury she flung a plasma bolt that came nowhere close to its jeering target; losing her precarious footing, she fell again to the floor. The rippling, liquid image of Dementor towered over her, the wand in one hand, a nightstick in the other.

A _nightstick_. A simple _bludgeon_.

And he was smiling. "Give me ze disc und ve can dispense mit ze ugliness."

"No… this can't be _happening!_" She was a master thief. A adept in martial arts. A superhuman. She couldn't be defeated by a Bavarian midget with a stupid helmet and a club. Plasma flared from both her hands; the green flickering was now more than she could handle, and she had to power down or lose her lunch.

Dementor's smile was demonic. "Strange how the UNREAL exerts so much POWER on us, Frau Lipsky. Ze room ist not spinning, you KNOW that. And yet you cannot STAND, you cannot aim your PLASMA, you cannot DEFEND YOURSELF." The nightstick came down. "And now you can join Agent Du in the sugarplum dreaming."

Taking the disc, he nodded in Kim's direction. "Sorry about your luck, Fraulein Possible. But ze vertigo vill end in a _stunde_ or two–"

"_Frau Stoppable_." She was getting tired of telling people. Maybe it hadn't been on the Paparazzi Network, but didn't anyone even read the Middleton Examiner anymore?

"Oh, so he and thee – I hadn't heard." He glanced at the unconscious Ron with a hint of confusion, shrugged his shoulders, whipped out a communicator. "Myron! I need ze copter on ze roof, _mach schnell_!" At the exit he turned for the traditional villainous farewell: "Auf wiedersehen, Frau Stoppable. Ven ve meet again, you vill give me your Battlesuit happily. And ze best part is – I VILL NOT NEED IT!"

The madman had barely departed when Will Du stirred, groaned, and tried to stand up. "What th –" He managed to grab hold of a stanchion, clinging to it as if he might fall off the earth if he let go. He saw the green woman sprawled on the floor, gasped.

Kim answered his unasked question. "Dementor showed up after she knocked you out."

"We – we've got to relocate this place." The world was rocking from side to side. "Is she—"

"She's down for the count. At present. You've got vertigo. New superweapon," Kim told him. "And Dementor's got _Snowman Hank_."

"We'll get him before he can do anything with it." Du looked slightly greenish; he closed his eyes. It seemed to help a little. "Our best minds couldn't crack the coded signal."

"Hello? It's _Dementor_. He can do it. He _will_ do it." She rattled her manacles. "I can stop him."

"Global Justice protocol forbids the release of –"

"Forget GJ protocol and let me go! He's getting away!"

The Chief of Global Justice staggered to a switch, managed to grab it as he fell.

On the roof, in the Christmas Eve night, Dementor waited, becoming angrier by the moment. Any minute Global Justice agents might show up, although Shego had done a _vunderbar_ job destroying their alarm systems. More importantly, he insisted on punctuality in his flunkies. Finally he whipped out his communicator. "_MYRON_! VHERE…IST…ZAT…_COPTER_? I NEED IT _NOW_!"

There was a second of hiss and pop, then the perpetually befuddled voice of his lone minion. "There's someone here who wants to rent it. For some sort of, uh, string quartet."

"Helikopter…streichquartett?" Dementor mused, baffled. "Myron, zis ist not ze TIME, I am not ZE PATRON OF ZE AVANT-GARDE ARTS! BRING ME ZE – vait, he vants to _rent_ it? How much?"

"He's talkin' a lot of devalued Euros. Is that a good thing?"

"Get his email. Ve talk vith him later. And _BRING ME ZAT HELICOPTER_!"

From behind the mad genius came a voice he had come to despise, over the years. "You won't be needing it today, Dementor."

"You haven't had _enough_? Then try ZIS on for ze sizing." His hand went to the box on his belt; he cranked a knob to full intensity, held the flashing wand above his head. His sinister glower dared Kim to approach.

And she did. Four cartwheels took her across the roof; the fifth became a vicious kick that sent the scientist flying. With a crackle of electricity, the diabolical weapon was shattered, fragments scattering across the roof.

Furious, he screamed his hatred at his enemy: "Zat cannot BE! NO ONE can resist the power of VERTIGO! NOT… EVEN… _YOU_!"

"I was a head cheerleader. We won the finals three years in a row. Your vertigo wand's nothing compared to some of those routines." A confident smile denied the nausea and dizziness that was sweeping over her in waves. Something else she'd learned in high school. "Some things you never forget."

"Very vell," snarled Dementor, yanking out a pistol, "ve return… to ze DISINTEGRATOR!" A beam flared out; with a frantic back handspring Kim avoided it, leaving an air conditioning unit to vanish from existence. Dementor fired again; a spin, a series of leaps, and she was again out of harm's way. Portions of the roof flared and disappeared. Briefly, crazily, she wondered if Global Justice had good insurance.

Dementor fired again. And again. Swore in German, panned the beam across the roof, leaving destruction in its wake.

Kim continued to dodge it.

It was a stalemate. The maniac couldn't get a bead on her, but she couldn't get close enough to disarm him. And as damage accumulated, she was quickly running out of roof to stand on.

The sound of chopper blades whuffling through the darkness brought a Teutonic guffaw from the diminutive scientist. He fired another shot, still holding Kim at bay, as the helicopter flew erratically toward the building, hovered shakily overhead. A hatch opened.

"Farewell, Frau Stoppable!" With a blast of short-range boot jets, Dementor shot into the air, caught the hatch and flung himself within. The door closed; the helicopter spun around and began to ascend, leaving Kim on the devastated rooftop, watching in despair. _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_ was in Dementor's hands, and with it, the secret of total mind control.

There would be no more Christmases.

And then it was that the thing happened, the thing only Kim witnessed, the thing no one, not even Ron, ever completely believed. There was the faint sound of sleigh bells, the passing of a strangely-shaped shadow across the December moon. Something hurtled down toward the helicopter, something hard and heavy, something that might have been a huge sack full of coal. A hearty "Ho, ho, ho" wafted down on the wind, and the UFO was gone.

The bag crashed into the whirring blades; coal chunks and rotor pieces flew in a dozen directions. Out of control, the copter spiraled cataclysmically toward the earth below. A moment later an explosion threw its garish light on the desert landscape, shook the headquarters of Global Justice with its force.

The menacing legacy of Weapon XIII-666 had finally ended.

_Definitely naughty list_, Kim thought, watching the flames. _Note to self: do _not_ get on Santa's bad side_.


	6. Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. There's a lot of Christmas stuff I don't own, either. Who knows how much of _that_ will get dragged outta the attic. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Living Earth_ by David Maslanka; _The Poem of Ecstasy_ by Alexander Scriabin; _The Beginning of Times_ by Amorphis.

* * *

The cozy fire in the fireplace, the tree with its twinkling lights, the gentle, quiet sound of carols bringing nostalgia to the room: it was Christmas Eve again. On the TV, it was the 1950s, and that world-weary kid was again seeking that BB gun from Santa; neither of the Stoppables were paying much attention to the movie. "This time last year," Kim said, softly, snuggling closer to her husband, "we were in Global Justice headquarters."

"Yeah, and they kept me sedated through that whole adventure. I missed everything. Our first mission in years, and I missed it."

"You didn't miss much." She hadn't told him much. He knew GJ had captured them; he knew both Shego and Dementor had wanted the secret weapon; and he knew the weapon had been destroyed. He didn't know what the weapon had been, or what effect it had on its victims. To some degree, her actions had been dictated out of fear; after the scandal, GJ was no longer a threat, but there were other powers out there that had not been, perhaps could not be neutralized. The less Ron knew about Weapon XIII-666, the better. The safer.

She didn't want to hurt him either. Will Du had claimed _Snowman Hank_ only had power over weak-willed people. Why should she reveal that? Or the reason why both Ron and Drakken had been such inept, maladroit bumblers throughout their respective careers?

No, that sort of knowledge helped no one. So she kept it to herself. She kissed him, lightly, on his cheek; he smiled the big Ron smile that she cherished, and was about to return the kiss when the Kimmunicator startled them both with its raucous signal.

It was Wade. They exchanged a glance; in their senior year of high-school they'd facetiously decided he was interrupting their intimate moments on purpose. Even now he had an unerring talent for calling at the most inopportune time. "Hyvää joulua!" the young giant jovially announced.

Ron looked puzzled; Kim asked "Are you in _Finland_?"

"Sure am. Professor Holopainen needed my advice on some cybernetic stuff. So I thought I'd wish you guys a merry Yuletide while I had a moment." Years before the _Snowman Hank_ incident, Wade had set up failsafe programs designed to restore his memory should he fall prey to brainwashing. With enemies like Drakken and Dementor, it had seemed prudent.

When Global Justice returned him to his home, those same programs had undone Dr. Ludovico's 'foolproof' technique; upon realizing what had happened, Wade had called in a few favors to some very high government officials. Officials whose computers he'd repaired, without revealing what he'd found on their hard drives.

Those officials owed the young man their careers. The commando invasion that had rescued Kim and Ron from GJ HQ had been the result.

They'd also captured Shego, Dementor and Myron, the latter two bruised and singed by their narrow escape from the copter. The last copy of _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_ had definitely been destroyed in the explosion. The growing peril of Global Justice itself had also come to an end, the organization disbanded, Will Du imprisoned in disgrace. In his official statement on the matter, the President claimed to have known nothing about Weapon XIII-666.

Of course.

"Samoin, Wade." Kim smiled.

Ron added, "Nil Sine Numine." The state motto was the only foreign phrase he knew.

"Gotta roll. Professor Holopainen wants me to come with him and his family to some sort of weird concert. Fiddlers in helicopters. It's got a long history. Evidently the premiere was postponed for some reason. Some sort of political intrigue."

"Leave it to the Finnish," Kim proclaimed. "Lot of musical talent comes from there." It sounded good, but she couldn't really think of any, right off hand. Wasn't there some ancient composer named Rautavaara or something?

"Actually I think it was written by a German," Wade said, almost apologetically. "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, guys. See ya when I get back to the States."

Wade signed off at the same time the movie on TV was concluding; as the end credits rolled, an entirely too cheerful voice boisterously declared "Twenty-four hours of your favorite Christmas special! Only here, on KXKVI!"

Kim frowned, just a little. "Is that Gregg Greatman? Boy, that guy's annoying –"

"KP, do you remember _The Six Tasks of Snowman Hank_?"

"Wh – what?" She was shocked and couldn't hide it. "_Snowman Hank_? Sure. Sure. I remember it. What about it? Fred Copperhead. Christmas star. Feud between the Fockses and the Hayres." She managed to put on a smile. "Friends, family, and turning bad guys good…"

"Honey, don't _freak out_ about it. I just wanted to tell you something."

"About _Snowman Hank_?" Her heart was hammering in her chest. What did he know? How did he know? She'd tried so hard to keep him from it. "What?"

"I finally saw it again. Last month."

"_Where_?"

"Calm down, KP. It's no big deal." He wondered why she was so upset. "We were cleaning out the office at Smarty Mart and I found an old VHS tape. Some employee must have recorded it years ago and left the tape there by accident."

"And – and you _watched_ it?" Visions of lost pants, of failed missions, of his horrid alter-ego Zorpox and the fearsome Mega-Weather Generator flashed before her. Who could say what a fresh dose of Weapon XIII-666 might have done to him? She felt a tear running down her cheek. This was the worst possible time.

"Yeah. And you know what?" There was a wistful sadness on his features. "You really can't go home again. It was awful."

She'd never been more relieved in her life. "A - awful?"

"Why did I like it so much as a kid? It's terrible. Just one boring cliché after another. And those songs are absolutely dreadful, too." He paused. "That argument we had last year? You were right. I guess I was just too immature as a kid to see it."

She regarded her husband with a new respect. He would always be a rebel, an iconoclast, an eccentric. In a world full of round holes, he would ever be a trapezohedral peg. That was inseparable from his character, part of what she loved about him. But he was finally growing up. Maturing.

Putting aside childish things.

One question remained. "What, uh, what happened to that _tape_, hon?"

"Broke two-thirds of the way through. I pitched it in the incinerator with the rest of the trash." He suddenly realized why she was acting so peculiarly. "Oh, man, I _get_ it. You got me a copy of it for Christmas. Oh, _man_, KP, I'm _sorry_. I didn't mean to crush your best wishes under the iron jackboot of –"

She put her finger to his lips, silenced him gently. "No iron jackboots this year, Ron." The cuckoo clock began to warble out midnight. "It's Christmas. I've been waiting all day to tell you. I wanted it to be a Christmas present."

"Tell me what, hon?"

She drew him close, her eyes gazing into his, her voice barely a whisper. "I'm pregnant."

Somewhere sleigh bells jingled their magic in the snowbound Christmas morn.


End file.
